This invention relates to the collection of sunlight and specifically to improvements in a stationary solar concentrating collector.
Practical stationary solar concentrators include the well known compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) trough and the linear wedge. These collectors focus light onto an absorber without following the sun, thus eliminating the expense of rotating machinery.
The CPC is elegantly simple, though very tall compared to its width. CPC height poses an engineering challenge since, if the collector is made larger to gather more light, its reflective wall cross section must be increased disproportionately to overcome the greater effects of gravity and wind loading. By comparison, the wedge is short and wide, a profile that is stable and easily scaled-out to collect a larger area of sunlight. Solar Concentrating Wedge, U.S. Pat. No. 8,333,480, Murtha, uses advanced collection optics to achieve the low profile.